The present disclosure relates to the field of electronic tracking and identification and especially to the tracking and identification of load moving devices, such as forklifts or other vehicles.
In an exemplary production facility, a conveyer system transports loads of product or other items, referred to simply as loads, to a receiving region. Equipment operators use forklifts, or other vehicles, to move each load from the receiving region to one or more loading docks of a distribution region of the production facility. A tractor-trailer or other load hauler may be positioned at each loading dock to receive the loads from the forklifts.
The floor of a busy production facility typically becomes heavily trafficked with forklifts and equipment operators. Accordingly, one or more supervisors may be tasked with monitoring the production facility to ensure that the equipment operators move each load to the correct loading dock. If the production facility is sufficiently small, a single supervisor may track the forklifts and the loads from the floor of the production facility. A large production facility, however, may require multiple supervisors and/or assistants. Of course, the cost of additional personnel may be prohibitively expensive for some organizations.
To reduce the cost of tracking load moving devices within a production facility, one or more video cameras may be positioned in view of at least the receiving region and the distribution region of the production facility. The cameras are typically connected to one or more video screens, which may be monitored from a location remote from the floor of the production facility by a single person. The camera system generally increases the field of view over that of a person standing on the facility floor, in the nature of a typical surveillance camera.
The camera system, however, does not enable a viewer of the monitor(s) to easily identify a particular forklift being utilized by an equipment operator. This is because, as viewed on the monitors, each forklift may appear virtually identical to each other forklift on the production floor. Accordingly, further developments in the field of electronic tracking and identification of load moving vehicles are desirable.